Thursday, July 31, 2008

**Before reading this, go down two posts and read about what Leonard is up to...I totally missed that fact that he finally posted something.**

So the new Transworld video just came out and I got a chance to check it out online. Here is my review:

David Gravette's part is amazing. There are some boring tricks but those are over-shined by the good stuff. His ender was kinda weird to be used as an ender. Some cool things include a manny to crooks down a handrail, kickflip bean plant from a bowl onto the wall, and blaster to fs wallride from one of those loading ramp things.

The friends montage has some proper skating, but the music was pretty lame. Actually, overall the music sucked in this video.

Kenny Hoyle's part was as boring as I anticipated. There are some 'wow' tricks, but his skating is not exciting by any means (generally speaking).

Matt Miller has that Matt Miller style, sorry for that, he can't help it. He does thrown down some bangers, so it is a little less boring than Kenny's part.

Nick Trapasso, good but not amazing. There were a lot of boring tricks where he is hucking himself down things, but there are some creative and interesting tricks scattered about.

Richie Jackson's part is nowhere near as amazing as his last part, so don't get your hopes up as I did. He has some pretty amazing tricks, like wallride to bs 5-0 180 out on a bench, some powerslides down stairs, wallride to crooks on pole sticking out of bank, and some interesting polejams. However, he does an over-abundance of similar variations of the same tricks. He loves to do hippy jump combo tricks...cool for the first couple, but get old by the 20th. Honestly the best trick in his part was done by Patrick Melcher - wallride to boardslide the top of a wall over a gap.

Malto wrecks shop. You can just tell that he is just too consistent and lands all his tricks in a matter of minutes. The tricks he does are basic and I can see how someone can get bored with it, but somehow it pulled me in. I think because I am always anticipating what he is going to do next. Sometimes I expect a certain trick and he does something that I don't think many people would consider on the spot. There is this amazing back smith he does on a hubba and he does a line where he nose blunts a legit handrail and almost immediately back nose blunts an even more legit handrail in a line. What?! Dude is just too good.

They are from London School of Economics, UCL's Senate House Library, Birkbeck College, SCONUL (the British Interlibrary Cooperation System), Canterbury Christ Church, CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals), City University and Greenwich University. Of all these, I would say that the Senate House is the most amazing for the sheer density and number of books. LSE comes second for having such a beautiful, open interior space. Not pictured are library cards from the University of Portland, Portland State University, Columbia University, and Kent University. Those I lost. Another card I will receive soon is from Ravensbourne College College of Design where I will be working next month. Both David Bowie and Stella McCartney went there. Shit is serious.

Behind the library and library-oriented cards is my dissertation. So far, it's 60 pages, which is not a ton, but not exactly small, either. It's about information. The philosophy and history of information. It's a media-historical reading. I finish it in about a month. It's all I do anymore. After that point I will become a normal person. By a normal person, I mean skateboarding and being social again. I have a ton of new tricks all planned out in my mind. Super tech.

OK. also, this is a view from outside my balcony. You can see the Barbican apartments off at the end. They represent a high point in the history of what is called "Brutalist" architecture. I suppose you can't see it that well, but it's a pretty rad building.

anyway. wish me luck.

Uh, ok, last thing: you should listen to this song. It made me wish I was from Oakland, even though the fact they have a street called "seminary" kind of freaks me out.

Libraries have internetz...I see homeless people checking their MySpace accounts in the Mid-Manhattan Public Library all the time. Get on that Leonard!

I would like to point out a few things that have me psyched lately:

1. Donovan Strain. "You know I don't speak to no cops. I even wrote a book about it. It goes like this: Should You Talk To the Cops? By Donovan Stain. Chaptah 1. Nah...nah,nah,nah. The End."

2. Bueno Skateboards is coming back reincarnated as Roger Skateboards. Since Michael Sieben is one of my favorite skateboarding artist (as I have mentioned before), it will be awesome to see more of his work with this company.

3. Best part in a while (sorry MJ). Go buy the video and watch it in full quality, suckers.

4. Budi kinda started skating again...perhaps you will see some footage of him appear here one day...maybe.

5. I have a couple video ideas and if people come through will put some fun stuff out in the next year or so.

So I know I haven't actually written much and have been lazy blogging with photos, videos, and links, but that is due to a lack of time (something is better than nothing?). Well, I will make some attempts to drop some knowledge (or lack thereof) in coming post. Perhaps Leonard can motivate me.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

We stopped in Encinitas on the way to LA. It was kinda desolate...for example, this lone surfer out in the ocean.

We didn't actually go down to the beach though. We observed from above.

On the way back we saw why surfers might prefer sunroofs, haha.

There were lots of colorful flowers everywhere we went. This is actually a plum tree I am standing under. I stole a plum and it was very good...never had one that fresh before.

This is Oceanside...another stop on our drive north to LA.

Driving practically right on the beach is way better than the highway (even if it does take longer). I like how you can see the lifeguard tower in the mirror.

I promise, this is sunny California.

Next stop: Los Angeles.

See?

We got to LA when it got dark so the next day we decided to get started with the sightseeing. We went to Rodeo Drive to check out the super expensive fashions and maybe catch a glimpse of celebs shopping like us little people. I think it was too early though...we saw may 5 other people on the strip (none celebs).

The Roberto Cavalli store had a cool door handle though.

Camille likes to pose with statues (literal posers). ;)

We found a cool tree.

I climbed it.

90210, suckas!

We drove around Mulholland Drive.

We hiked up in the Hollywood Hills.

LA and its smog.

Checked out the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd.

There were some old hand and footprints from actors from the 30s and beyond.

There were some random characters scaring Japanese tourists.

Speaking of Japan, Gozirra has his own star!

We saw some paparazzi running through the parking garage to get pics of some celeb...not sure who, just know it was a she.

View of the Hollywood sign from the area.

We drove past High Voltage, aka LA Ink, on La Brea.

We went to the Farmers Market, which is more like an outdoor mall than anything. I thought this spitting fountain was cool.

Camille didn't think so. Unimpressed.

We totally peaced out of that place!

But not before checking out this old time gas station on display.

Old time gas prices, per chance???

The next day we went to Venice Beach, walking up to Santa Monica.

They had some fun exercise equipment all along the beach.

This is their permission (legal graffiti) spot.

I guess the trees are legal too?

Some other cool permission walls we came across.

This guy was a monster...trust me on this one.

Random sticker jobs result in eby's Realty. Holla.

The amusement park on the Santa Monica Pier.

3 miles later (and 3 miles back, later)

How do you like that last photo?! All rides in operation at once. Yeah, I got it like that!

This is the more placid end of the pier.

After that we went to the Third Street Promenade, which was basically another outdoor mall. Nothing special. This is the only thing worth showing: a dolphin piggy bank think with money doing toward the homeless in the area or something.

We then went to a state park in Malibu. There were mad seagulls. The whole place smelled bad and was full of rotting kelp. We even saw some large dead thing washed ashore (dolphin?).

Eww...so much for Malibu. *Note, this park was our only experience with Malibu, so I will hate on it based on that.

The next day we went on a tour of the Warner Bros. Studio. It was actually pretty cool since it is the only real studio in the traditional sense of the word left in Hollywood. I wish I could have take more photos but there were some places they wouldn't let us.

Fake store fronts.

Apparently that Zohan movie was filmed here recently.

Camille checkin' it out.

There were a lot of crew people riding around on bikes to get from place to place. There were also filming for that Terminator (The Sarah Connor Chronicles) TV show while we were there.

We got to go into this room to see some old vehicles and props from some movies.

The tires for the Bat Mobile were pretty sick.

Yeah, I bashed in the windows on the Harry Potter car.

Ooh La La!

Here is the set to Friends.

We tried driving up to the Hollywood sign and ended up going through these super narrow streets with houses practically dangling from cliffs and straight drops over the curbs. The access was closed and Camille was freak out every second of the trip.

This was the closest we got.

We then hiked up to the Observatory in the hills.

They had an interesting sun dial out front.

Huh?

The ceiling. The string hanging down had a pendulum ball thing on it.

Self portrait through a polarized camera.

Eclipse demo.

Camille scoping out the telescope (get it?).

Others hiking to the Observatory.

A hawk flying super high above us.

We ate at this vegan spot, Pure Luck, in some hipster area of LA. There were a couple bike shops and everyone was on fixed gear bikes. This mural on the wall outside the restaurant was pretty representative.

We went to Redondo Beach, which ended up being like a fishing town. The beach was kinda lame, so we didn't hang around long.

This ad for the Hellboy movie is pretty cool though. I can imagine this freaking kids out though...seeing a monster climbing out of a manhole.

This is supposed to be some kind of pirate boat with a life sized pirate lady attached to the ropes.

This gondola for hire is for couples to get romantic. It even had champagne in an ice bucket on the front.

This is the Seaside Lagoon. An actual warm water lagoon with water from the ocean that has been transformed into a type of children's pool. Lame!

We went to Hermosa Beach afterward, which was much nicer. I didn't get any photos though.

From there we went to Echo Park back in LA to wander around by the lake.

There were a lot of ducks with their babies.

We saw this turtle perched up on this chicken wire in the water.

His crew then showed up to chill.

They had ducks with afros there.

NY represent!

We lurked on these guys, hoping that they would goose some unsuspecting person walking by. It never happened. Maybe we watch too much AFV. :(

They had babies too.

So long California...until next time.

I still have some underwater photos to develop, so I will post those once that happens and I get around to scanning them somewhere.

I have a new clip too, but Google Video is not allowing it to be processed for some reason. I guess I will try to re-compress it and put it on YouTube. So watch out for that...